3D-printed guns: easy to print, a nightmare to import

One of the key benefits of 3D printing is the fact that you can locally manufacture products rather than paying to ship them half the way round the world.

But when Austin-based Cody Wilson developed a 3D-printed handgun -- called The Liberator -- that achieved international notoriety, it piqued the interest of curators at the Victoria & Albert Museum. But the museum would not be content with a replica; only a Wilson original would do. "The museum is interested in provenance and so wanted to explore something that had come from Cody. In a sense it's a bit absurd to have that lineage [for something like a 3D-printed gun], but it's important for the museum," explains V&A Curator of Digital Louise Shannon.

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Gallery: 3D-printed guns: easy to print, a nightmare to import

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"We have a really large collection of arms and armour in our collection and this is a really important design story and one that should be talked about in the context of the museum," she adds. "We have this new technology [3D-printing] and we have to face up to the fact that not everyone will use it to download a 3D-printed gnome. It's a reality of the changing mode of design production."

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3D printed guns a year on: from prototype to serious weapons

Importing such a 3D-printed firearm opened up a whole can of legislative and regulatory worms. In fact, even not importing the gun presented unique challenges.

Wilson developed The Liberator in early 2013 through his company

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Defense Distributed, only to fire it on a private shooting range in front of a BBC camera crew on 6 May 2013. The next day he made the STL files freely available to download via his website. 100,000 people downloaded the drawings. The Liberator was Wilson's way of allowing people to exercise the US constitution's Second Amendment: the right to bear arms. "Anything can be a gun," says Shannon. "All you need is ammunition, something to hold the ammunition and a way to release it. Wilson is taking that theory to the extreme."

The day after Wilson fired the gun, the US Department of State ordered Wilson to remove the files with a letter that suggested that by simply allowing people to download the STL files, he could be breaching International Traffic in Arms Regulations (i.e. firearms export regulations) by "transferring technical data to a foreign person, whether in the United States or abroad". That's right: the very act of downloading the 3D files of the gun could be tantamount to importing a gun.

For Wilson, the implications were grave: although he was licensed to produce firearms, exporting them was another matter. If found guilty of breaching ITAR's regulations just once, Wilson could face a 10-year prison sentence. The fact that there were a hundred thousand downloads means he faced decades of jail time.

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Gallery: 3D-printed guns: easy to print, a nightmare to import

ByOlivia Solon

This is just one facet of the regulatory quagmire that surrounds the gun, and which V&A curators have been trying to navigate since the museum started the process of acquiring the weapon: a process that is still not complete 18 months later.

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Curator Louise Shannon first visited Wilson at his workshop -- where he's licensed to produce firearms, including The Liberator -- in Austin back in June 2013. The museum decided to acquire three versions of the Liberator: one that had been fired, one fully-built and one separated out into its 15 parts. Wilson would print these to order [he's kept the original]. Each part was made from Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene, a type of plastic, printed on an industrial Stratasys 3D printer. The guns only become functioning firearms with the addition of a single metal nail, which acts as the firing pin (the printer couldn't make one sturdy enough).

The museum would also acquire the CAD files, as soon as the legalities around their "export" where ironed out, as well as some 3D-printed AK47 and AR15 lower receivers and magazines to showcase how Wilson envisioned people making replacement parts for existing gun models.

For Shannon, the legal hurdles around importing such artefacts have become as important to the story as the material objects themselves. When she set out to acquire the pieces, she had no idea how complex the process would be. The V&A is by no means lacking in experience of complicated imports: the museum has one of the world's largest collections of arms and armour and has a license to display firearms under the UK's Firearms Act.

Under the guidance of in-house specialists, Shannon set about seeking an individual import license for the Department for Business Innovation and Skills - a customary measure when bringing a firearm into the UK from outside of the EU. This would need to be accompanied by a Non Transfer of Use certificate from the US Department of State and customs paperwork generated by the fine art transportation specialist agent. Once it arrived at the V&A it would have to be unpacked by a safety specialist and displayed in an extra-thick case.

All of this needed to be completed in time for display in the museum for a show on 14 September 2013. As the deadline approached, the V&A fulfilled its part in the process, gaining the relevant import licence on 13 August. But then the US State Department demanded an updated import license with further specifications relating to the Liberator's components. The UK Department for Business Industry and Skills rejected this request, saying it was "purely cosmetic". The gun appeared to sit squarely in the gap between the two governments' definition of a firearm.

With the show approaching, the V&A decided to 3D-print a stand-in, using Digits2Widgets' service.

However, design director Jonathan Rowley had been critical of the gun in the press when it had been released and didn't feel comfortable in printing a fully functioning Liberator. He ended up creating some of the components out of sturdy plastic but the frame, grip and barrel in plaster. This meant that the pieces could be displayed to the public but the gun couldn't be assembled and fired. This approach had the advantage of not requiring a firearms licence. It arrived in the nick of time: the day before the press view for the show.

As a result, at least in part, of the V&A's acquisition, the Home Office updated its Guide on Firearm Licensing Law to make room for 3D-printed guns: it now specifies that the manufacture and possession of a firearm or its components are covered by the Firearms Act and could be liable for prosecution.

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Five months later, and where are the guns? "Still in Texas," says Shannon. If all goes well, The Liberator will arrive in London in time for a new exhibition in June which will showcase, somewhat ironically, a "rapid response collection" of pieces that are acquired as soon as they become newsworthy. The idea is that the museum reflects the changing way fast-moving global events influence society.

In order to make this second deadline, parties on both sides of the pond have had to reapply for import and export licences since they have now run out. When the parts eventually do arrive, the V&A will add the firing pins. The Digits2Widgets version features a nail found in the museum's technicians' store.

Intriguingly, the pin is not only the one component that could be picked up by a metal detector, thus potentially identifying The Liberator as a gun, but also the only component not listed on the import licence: the V&A turns the Liberator into a functioning firearm.